Power Politics

Human Rights Watch, an international watchdog group, “urged the US Congress on Tuesday to reject a Pentagon request for thousands of cluster munitions, deemed responsible for many civilian deaths in the invasion of Iraq.” The group argues that “cluster munitions should not be used as long as they pose grave dangers to civilians during attacks and long afterward.” The group claims cluster munitions have “killed more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians,” and anti-cluster bomber advocates say the bombs present a grave risk to civilians, peacekeepers, and others when employed. The US military “has requested hundreds of millions of dollars to procure cluster bombs,” and deploys them liberally in combat.

In what may come as a surprise to loyal readers, I tend to support the position of the human rights groups here, although I dissent in part. These bombs - designed at a time when aerial bombardment was pretty much limited to area denial, destroying some fixed targets, and completely blanketing a battlefield with munitions - are something of an anachronism. Now, the bombs do have uses where their deployment is necessary - specifically area denial against an advancing foe, and the destruction of certain spread out targets (such as an airfield). However, their other uses (destroying enemy formations, cost effectively saturating a battlefield, etc.) can be filled in the near future with more effective forms of bombardment (precision guided small munitions coupled with real time intelligence, for one). And their principal advantage, cost effectiveness, has been narrowed significantly by a new class of micro-munitions. Their costs, including extensive civilian agitation, depression of the local economy, and the deaths of friendly peacekeepers, are great.

Phasing these devices out of general use (while maintaining a limited inventory more inline with a more specific doctrine of deployment) is in the national interests of the United States. The military should emphasize new, cost effective precision bombs as they become available, and should not retain old military doctrine simply because it’s so well entrenched.

If true, this report from AFP is highly disturbing. The reports suggests that six warships will be taken out of commission (two Type 23 frigates and four Type 42 destroyers), and that military troop levels will be cut by as much as 15,000. The United Kingdom could hardly afford to lose such a great amount of military capacity in a time of peace, and certainly not in a time of war. Britain needs to maintain a military capable of aggressively advancing its interests overseas, and ensuring that its military alliance of shared interests with the United States remains strong. However, government officials have denied the report, so it may simply be a false rumor. We shall have to see.

The British government on Saturday dismissed a report that the armed forces will face massive cuts under a government spending review expected within the next few weeks.

The Mail on Sunday reported that Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown is planning cuts in the defence budget that will require manpower to be slashed by as much as 15,000, with four of the Army’s 40 battalions scrapped and six of the once-mighty Royal Navy’s 30 warships taken out of commission.

The British finance ministry, known as the Treasury, dismissed the claims and said the spending review would provide sufficient funding to ensure that the armed forces were equipped for the tasks facing them.

Platts features an incisive report on Iraqi oil, detailing future oil prospects and challenges. With the Iraqi reconstruction costing much more than anticipated, oil revenue will serve as an essential source of financing for security programs and new projects. As such an important source of investment for the new Iraqi republic, people should become well informed about this oil. Ensuring that the Iraqi government does not come to depend on oil (as other countries have to a disastrous extent) and that the oil revenue is well spent will be one of the US’s most important tasks after the hand-over of sovereignty. Independent oversight and private sector involvement are absolutely essential.

When the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) transfers limited power back to an Iraqi interim government on June 30 after more than a year of occupation, oil revenue is expected to flow directly into Iraqi coffers for the first time since the Gulf War of 1991.

But with only limited investment made in Iraq’s oil infrastructure under US control as a result of sabotage and violence that have scared off foreign investors, Iraq’s oil industry has all but stood still since the fall of Saddam Hussein, and the condition of some of its installations is now even below pre-war capabilities.

All that interim Iraqi authorities can hope for in the immediate future is a restoration of oil production to a pre-war level of 3-mil b/d by the end of 2004 with the work that has been done so far by Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root (KBR) and the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Iraqi oil minister Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum said May 11 that current oil production was running at between 2.3- and 2.4-mil b/d, and he forecast that output would rise to 2.8-mil b/d in the next few months and then to 3-mil b/d by yearend. Iraqi oil production reached a peak of 3.7-mil b/d in 1979.

One of the greatest dangers to the successful resolution of the North Korean situation is the increasingly large trade relationship between the DPRK and the RoK. In fact, as the Times notes, bilateral trade “soared to $724 million last year, from $400 million in 2000.” Increasing cultural and trade ties, such as “North and South Korean ships plan[ing] to trade directly for the first time, as each country opens seven ports to ships from the other,” threaten to undermine the isolation the United States has been (fairly) successfully imposing on the North. If the pressure on Kim is reduced by more favorable trade conditions (he needs trade to sustain his barely-functioning dictatorship), he will no longer feel the need to compromise with the United States. Secure from attack, US options against the DPRK will be severely limited.

The United States needs to apply diplomatic and other pressure to South Korea (and sternly remind Japan that it’s not in its national interests to provide support to the Kim regime) to staunch the flow of capital and goods to the North. If South Korea can be so pressured, Kim will inevitably be forced back to the bargaining table in a position more susceptible to US demands. The question then is how to accomplish this. The US military has already taken the lead by downsizing and shifting American forces on the peninsula. While the capabilities of US forces present to deal with the DPRK will become even greater, the move sends a message across the bow of RoK government officials. Strategic considerations may very well convince them to restrict trade and aid. If they do not, then the US needs to apply even more pressure. This could be accomplished by hinting at very active enforcement of the PSI, or hinting at strong secondary sanctions against companies and states that cooperate with the North.

The WSJ has published a very informative article by reporter Morag Mackinnon about the Australian company Austal, and its bid to be one of the key players in the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship program. I highly suggest those with a subscription to the online Journal read it, as it provides an excellent summary of one of the ships certain to play a central role in future US military operations.

Here’s a small excerpt:

Calmer seas may lie ahead for Austal, an Australian boat builder beset by a storm after it crafted a super-yacht for golfer Greg Norman.

Austal is back on the radar of some big investment banks because it is part of a consortium that is one of two finalists to build 57 high-speed combat vessels for the U.S. navy, a contract valued at US$14 billion. “If they get the U.S. contract, it’s potentially a company maker,” says Matthew Newham, senior analyst at Fat Prophets, an independent equity research firm in Sydney.

Austal is partnered with General Dynamics in the contest to work on the U.S. Pentagon’s Littoral Combat Ship project. The competing consortium is led by Lockheed Martin.

UBS analyst Alexander Mees is another who believes the share gains could be great if Austal’s consortium is successful. If Austal is a winner in the competition, its share price “will go into orbit,” Mr. Mees says.